Cool Anticipation

Monday

• Cool days have arrived, and cold will not be far behind.  Some leaves cover the ground, but great mounds are to follow.  The days are shorter, but in a month nights will seem to last forever.  Meanwhile, anticipation for end of year holidays builds and commercial displays are beginning to blossom everywhere.
• This is a culture which thrives on anticipation.  Some people could not wait for the heat and light of summer to end.  They were either bored with it, or annoyed by the humidity, and find crisp breezes invigorating.  Soon enough they will wish for snow, and then grow tired of winter’s freeze.  I have grown out of always hoping for the next thing, and trying to enjoy this thing right here.  Today is bright, clear, cool, and only grudgingly autumn, as much remains bright green, and I celebrate it as it is.

Tuesday

Our world ever new awakes

Each day to calmly opened eyes

Before fevered brain kicks in

Firmly layers us complex

Sandwiched into heaven, hell

Unsure remembered maybe pasts

Imagined could be hopes and fears

Identical transmuted self

Wednesday

• Last week displayed mid-autumn, but felt like August.  This week the reverse.  Folks in hats, gloves, and heavy jackets vainly seeking incredible foliage.  In some ways, the contrasts are quite pleasurable, like unexpected spices on food.  On the other hand, the dissonance can be disquieting.
• I rejoice that experience is so fractured and inconstant.  Perfect serene and complementary moments, when they exist, quickly become boring.  Surprise feeds my enjoyment.  So if I rush out the door into right sunshine, only to dash back for some warm wrap, that’s fun.  Virtual reality misses that so far, which makes it very very far from true reality.

Thursday

Mission-focused streams of overly dressed people stride around Hecksher pond, bright cold and windy day, too cool too rapidly for the season.  Joan says, “well, at least they’re smart enough to be wearing hats.”

She has a point.  “Yeah, I know, when the season sneaks up there’s a tendency to not dress well at all.  Look _ even the kids on the playground have winter coats.”

“I see so many people all year just walking around with sweatshirts, no hat, nothing, like it’s summer.  I’m sure they have to get sick.  And their kids …”

“I once saw somebody running across the street in town in a snowstorm in bare feet and tee shirt,” I remark.

“Well, probably crazy drunk.  I’m talking about normal people.”

“I guess it’s easy for us to change outdoor dress.  I just move the winter stuff to the front of the closet, and when I reach in there it is.  I think we were a lot more mixed up when we were younger.”

“You might have been more mixed up,” she remarks.  “But it sure was harder when the boys were small.”

“The other thing,” I continue, ignoring her, “is that our stuff _ my stuff at least _ is much better quality now.  So I can wear the same boots, coats, gloves year after year and they hardly age.  Hats, I admit, I still wear out pretty quickly.”

“Don’t forget the lined driving gloves I have to get you almost every Christmas.”

“Right.  But even so, I’ve hardly bought anything new in years.  The good stuff just lasts and lasts.”

“But your Bean stuff costs a fortune  …” she complains.

“It works.  It almost never needs replacing.  And it is easy to find, because all I do is push it back in the closet.”

“That’s just you!” she says in a huff.  “I love to buy new things, and new things discounted are the most fun in the world.”

She matches the American consumer.  I don’t.  We continue to sit on the bench in silence, and watch the parade continue.

Hang Time

Monday

• In slow-motion video, sports stars float serenely, suspended between jump and the certain knowledge that they will eventually succumb to gravity.  Suspense builds as to just how long the action can continue.  And so it is now with the foliage and flowers.  Just how many days can a given sugar maple remain fluorescent orange, how long can lingering roses resist frost?  Mid-October is nothing but hang time, gasping at spectacle, awaiting the inevitable return to earth.
• Each morning, the light radiating off our backyard trees has a different hue, sometimes subtly and sometimes dramatically different than yesterday.  Each leaf remains poised to color vividly, turn brown, or dry. Asters and goldenrods fight the golden brown tide surrounding them, but we know that is simply a valiant rear-guard action.  Still, we hope the loveliness will last at least another day, perhaps another week, even longer, who knows?  Meanwhile, this moment hovers, as all moments must, between the past and future.

Tuesday

Everything green changes hue

Bees find that flowers are few

Sparkles are bright

But it’s freezing at night

And I’m not quite sure what to do

Wednesday

• Roman historians reported that among the Teutonic tribes it was a crime _ sometimes punishable by death _ to fatally injure a tree.  Early Americans, confronted by the same dark forests, decided that it was worse to leave forests standing unimproved and unused for growing crops.  Almost all the magnificent autumn displays throughout New England come from second or third growth woodland, the original having been logged off long ago.
• We still reserve our respect for historic or magnificent specimens, sometimes for overwhelming spectacle.  But for the most part we cut trees for furniture and lumber, or mash it into paper.  I am not saying such is wrong _ at least it is biologic and recycling, since trees will grow back eventually.  As many homeowners around here ruefully find out, maples and hickories actually grow back a lot faster than expected, shading flowerbeds, draining water from lawns, showering cascades of thundering nuts, and threatening houses with heavy overhanging limbs.  We still need to prune or remove these giants once in a while, but we should always approach them _ even just to admire their foliage _ with a degree of humility.

Thursday

This time of year, I am easily mesmerized by one branch or twig surrounded by its colored ensemble.  Or, especially, by a single fruit, one brilliant leaf.  I am paused in reverie staring at a particularly lovely specimen when John passes by and calls.  “You know that’s poison ivy.  Look but don’t touch!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I laugh.  “Learned that the hard way.  Still, loveliest display along this route today.”

“There’s a moral there somewhere,” he suggests.

“Oh, there’s a moral in everything.  Many morals.  The one we select always turns out to be something that supports our current agenda or mood.”

“So what’s yours today?”

“The transience of everything, I suppose.”

“Ah, romantic deep melancholy.  Too bad, with the day so lovely,” he critiques.

“No, no,” I insist.  “Transience in a good way.  This is the time to enjoy this particular leaf.  Tomorrow it may be brown or fallen.  Right now it is a marvel.”

“Like you, I suppose.”

“Well, OK.  But mostly, I want to take advantage of the micro-views of the world.  The pretty leaf right here, the flaming tree over there,” I gesture across the harbor, “no need to travel to far away destinations to take advantage of what is being offered.”

“Today only!  Don’t miss out!  Hurry!” he mocks.

“If you will.  Anyway, isn’t this nice, all red, orange, yellow, spotted and shiny?  Here, I’ll pick you a bunch if you want….”

“Fiend!”  he yells dramatically.  “Begone!  I walk in beauty, I do not drink of it!  Although,” he adds slyly, “you are free to take as many as you want for yourself. “ He continues on his way, whistling.

I try to get back into my study, but the spell has been broken.  Anyway, there are more things to see, and tomorrow will surely offer others, certainly different.

Friday

• No matter what, triggers have been fired.  Even if days remained extraordinarily warm until Christmas, leaves would brown and fall, perennials would dry and hibernate, annuals would not sprout.  Everything now awaits the new triggers of cold and damp, and goes about its business of dismantling.  Leaves and nuts will cascade down everywhere, inevitably.
• Sometimes the differences of a mile or so can be disorienting.  Drive down one street and the scenery remains that of late August.  Take another route and crisp golden orange leaves everywhere herald the imminent arrival of November.  Unlike Robert Frost, I have the pleasure of being able to take each road diverging in these yellow woods, and enjoy whatever unique perspective and thoughts they inspire.

Saturday

• Way back when biology was simple, many of us received our first lesson in environmental ecology and recycling from the story of our northern forest.  In the spring, roots would send water to buds to swell manufacture, and start using chlorophyll.  All summer long, roots continued to draw water and raw nutrients from the soil in exchange for the carbohydrate food sent back by the leaves.  In fall, shorter days made the leaves stop producing food, so the roots stopped sending water, the leaves dried up, decayed, and fell to the forest floor.  All winter that biomass decayed, leaching raw materials back into the soil, ready for the roots to repeat the cycle next season.
• Neat, simple, made sense, and although true in a grand sense, also wrong in details.
• In the fifties we constantly tended to underestimate natural biology.  We thought of most of it as at best machinery, at worst a mere extension of basic laws of, for example, evaporation.  We were sure we could do just as well, in almost no time, with our scientific medicine.  We had yet to discover almost anything about life, but were nevertheless sure we knew the big things and would soon control all there was to know. 
• Now the complexity of even the forest has been revealed, although not completely understood.  But one thing is certain: the fall ritual of dropping leaves is a lot more complicated than we thought.  After various triggers are associated and set off _ in itself somewhat mysterious _ hormones are released and active deconstruction and storage of leaf materials begins.  The components of chlorophyll and any trace elements and chemicals that are hard to come by are not abandoned in the leaves, but rather carefully removed, broken down, and shipped to the roots for storage. 
• What remains are primarily stiffening compounds _ silicates and such _ used in veins to provide shape and easily recovered from groundwater next year.  And carotenes, which provide more structure and incidentally a nice red orange yellow color.  That color, we all know, only appears when the chlorophyll is gone _ not destroyed, but deconstructed and shipped out.
• That’s why you can’t recreate autumn the rest of the year by picking a branch and letting it dry.  All you get there is dead brown decay.  Marvelous colors are hardly the sign of the tree giving up and going back to sleep, but rather the result of furious activity actively heading into hibernation and a planned renaissance when the next cycle occurs.
• I suspect our current visions of some simple deeper universe or reality are just as naïve as our former visions of forest cycles.

Sunday

• An afternoon of cold rain, a night of howling north wind, and landscapes are green again.  Any brilliantly colored foliage has been stripped off, what remains are still undead verdant leaves merely tinged off-hue.  Weather forecasters have expanded their realm and now predict when “peak color” should arrive in any region.  Fortunately, they have a better chance of getting that right than they often do the track of storms.
• From experience of other years, I believe that peak color has already passed many of the places I most visit.  From here on there will be shades of yellow gradually mellowing into browns which will lazily drift from sky to ground.  Besides, there are at this late date sure to be more savage winds and harsh heavy rains.  My task now is to seek out whatever small highlights I can find, and like everyone else around here, start to clean ongoing accumulations from the yard.

Accelerating Differentials

Monday

• Shortening days minute by minute are sneaky, hardly noticed except in quantum weekly leaps of darkness.  Chill wind at dawn, on the other hand, is a brisk slap on the face.  Fading flowers gently slide into another phase, still replaced by an occasional rose bloom or burst of aster blossoms.  Yet suddenly an isolated  tree will flame into orange or yellow, crisp into brown, present stark branches after a storm, all in the space of a few days.  Only a matter of uncertain, but limited, time until heavy dew on the leaping grass is replaced by frost.
• Cold used to represent the most certain marker of seasonal change.  Even today, I hear a few people vow to not give in and turn the heat on too early.  However, with the din and clatter of noise in the suburbs approaching city levels, not to mention exhaust fumes, most windows are sealed year round, thermostats set to “climate control” and isolation reigns indoors.  Calm, serene, and above all the same temperature.  Our commercial culture leads the charge to what comes next, frantically selling warm clothes and decorations for holidays that are less celebrated than endured.  I admit I wish for a few more warm afternoons, although “warm” is also being redefined.   

Tuesday

Wind rush hushes all

Quiet I sit, shiver, say,

Mantra:

It’s not that bad _

Yet

Wednesday

• Nights suddenly in the forties.  Leaves more affected by cold than by short days, will soon transform landscapes.  Fauna, on the other hand, are keenly aware of the sun’s retreat.  Birds have been fattening up or flocking southward, squirrels are burying nuts, a black wooly-bear caterpillar was trudging across the shed floor searching a good place to be transformed, adolescent snappers have migrated into deeper seas.
• Only I, with unique human perspective, regard this as moments in time.  Only I, with my amazing consciousness, can be aware that falling nuts portend falling snow.   Only I can enjoy the vistas of autumn while dreading the depth of winter and fondly remembering the soothing ambience of summer.  We live beyond today, tendrils towards past and future, and fail to understand how strange and miraculous such magic is.  Meanwhile, I pay obedience to the moment dressed in sweat shirt and vest, not yet requiring hat and gloves, which will be necessary (I foresee) soon enough.   

Thursday

“Whew!” I exclaim, as a nearly-frosty gust skims off the end of the harbor.

“You call this cold?” laughs Larry.  “You should come with us this weekend, right, Jan?”

“And you are going where?”

“We’re off on a bus foliage tour of Vermont,” Jan explains.  “Almost a week of mountains covered with bright colored leaves and warm fires on cold nights at various ski resorts.”

“Enjoy.” I comment.  “I’ve been in New England when the leaves turn, it’s very beautiful.”

“Recently?” asks Larry, skeptically.

“Well, no, a long time ago.”

“You and your wife should do it now,” notes Jan.

“Maybe.  I don’t know.  I remember well enough.  And there are lots of places I go to around here to get the same effects.”

“Like where?”

“Oh, Sagamore Hill, sugar maples on Goose Hill Road, the pond behind St. John’s church, 25A anytime of this month glows all the way.  But I’ve also developed other appreciations.”

“Like what?” Jan is curious.

“At upland farms yesterday, for example, I was really excited by the thousand browns and yellows of the weeds in the fields, the metallic crimson sumac shrubs, white asters, purple Russian knotweed and the fluffy stuff spilling out of dried milkweed pods.  Lots of fantastic things if you look slowly and closely.”

“A poet,” exclaims Jan.

“A lazy poet,” corrects Larry.  “He just doesn’t want to bother to go anywhere.”

“Some truth in that,” I admit.  “Well have a nice time,” I wave as a boat nudges into q waiting trailer to haul it away to storage somewhere amidst weeds just like those I had been describing.

Friday

• Each day delivers astonishment.  A cluster of leaves on a twig suddenly gleams with translucent colors like stained glass, a small patch on a hillside blazes red, crowns of trees flare outlines of gold.  Blink and everything is different yet again.  An impenetrable green sheath obscuring the sky may, after a night of fierce wind, be transformed into naked branches dancing against clouds.  
• If we were not so grounded in hard science, we would call it all magical, and invoke sprites and dryads as explanation, and I am still not quite sure that would be wrong.  Bits of the landscape are following their own isolated patterns and rhythms, out of step with everything else.  Of course, all those bits always do follow their own path, we are just too ignorant to observe most of the time.  In October, I am happy to let astonishment override my mundane knowledge.

Saturday

• For centuries, it has been fashionable to regard Nature as a grand artist.  Each sunset is a masterpiece, each April a bubbling extravaganza, each autumn a symphony of coordinated and contrasting hues.  We imagine harmonies and counterpoints, masses of one color offsetting another, a surprise around each bend in the trail, each change of light from passing clouds. 
• I guess that’s kind of true.  Kind of wrong.  Depends if you regard us as nature.
• After all, it is unlikely that a worm or a rabbit notices beautiful foliage on a hillside.  The incredible eyesight of hawks and eagles is focused on little scurrying brown objects below.  Ultraviolet vision among insects helps identify the right kind of blossoms.  But people are the only ones who see what we see, probably the only ones who project imagination into patterns, and certainly the only ones who talk about it, even to themselves.
• You and I are the grand artist, and we each bring our own mastery or lack of it to all that is spread before us.  Some may know each species, others can’t tell an oak from a maple.  Some are so wrapped in their cocoons of electronic necessity that they would hardly notice if the world became shades of black.  If you are lucky, you are one of the people who can appreciate our feasts, visual and otherwise.
• This is a good time of year to drop everything for a few moments, kick ourselves out of our couches and chairs, and reset our souls with immersion in plain old nature.  Artist or not, there is a lot to see, and even more to weave together in our own masterpieces inside our own skulls.

Sunday

• Cool air, crisp sun everything, shiny as if encased in plastic.  Crickets sound frantically, hordes of them hiding on the side of the shed door, a few sneaking into the house.  Hardly worth hunting them down, everything is on the way out now.  Grass needs mowing, but stays wet until dusk, a good enough excuse to wait for those not paid for the task.  Each night a reminder that fine days (for a given definition of fine) are going to become rare.
• Logic clamors it is time to put away the yard stuff, the hoses, the garden tools, the pots, the various little knick-knacks which enliven the patio.  Clean the garage so the car can be put away if necessary.  Clean the shed so the barbecue and certain pots escape coming snow.  Lazy intuition says the heck with logic, just sit back and relax and worry about doing nasty tasks when the days become nasty.  I’ve tried that path once in a while, and it doesn’t work well.  Better a little effort on a beautiful bright afternoon, than cursing and wet on a grey drizzling driving north wind. 

Almost Spoiled

Monday

• Connotations of “spoiled” are generally identical, although exact definitions vary.  A good picnic can be spoiled by a sudden rainstorm or visitation of mosquitoes.  A person can be spoiled with access to too many good things and a belief that the world always owes more.  An expectation (watching a movie, reading a book) can be spoiled by someone giving away the ending.  And food, of course, is spoiled when it rots into uselessness.  In so many ways, this place and time seems tinged with being spoiled right now.
• I know, this is supposed to be a nature-related musing.  And I suppose I can make a case that summer happiness has now been spoiled by cool damp weather.  Or that perfect flower gardens are now spoiled by spotty leaves, drying husks, and decaying blooms.  But the second part of my meandering thoughts each day does focus on me, and I sometimes am forced to realize how truly spoiled I really am and have been.

Tuesday

Spoiler alert _ you’re gonna die

Spoiler alert _ we’re gonna fry

Might be a billion years or ten

But everything just has to end

Dust to dust and ash to ash

Nothing here is built to last

Some names are known some thousands years

Some simply vanish without tears

Sad to say, but this is so

We live a while, and then we go

If I can, I’ll make mine seem

A long, exciting, brilliant dream

Wednesday

• People miss the sun only when there have been clouds for days, miss the rain only when nothing falls for weeks.  Human nature often takes the good in life for granted and concentrates on problems.  After all, that is how the struggle to survive has to work _ no use wasting time and energy on what is not threatening.  Fish only notice water when it is not available. 
• Our capacities in the last century have grown boundless.  Many of us are well supplied and well fed by a global supply chain that depends on a basically peaceful world where commerce is more profitable than war.  I never cease to be thankful for being born in my time, place, and situation.  We are certainly right to worry about ongoing problems and horrors _ life is far from perfect for anyone, wretched for some.  But if the core of what we now take for granted every day is ever shattered, the misery and destruction that will follow will certainly make these times, in retrospect, seem the most idyllic golden age that ever existed on this planet.

Thursday

Mike is staring up at some of the carnival equipment parked on the Hecksher ballfield.  Trucks have left huge mysterious structures everywhere, waiting to be unfolded, unpacked, and plugged in.  Columbus Day is always marked by the Huntington Fall Festival.

“Too bad it’s going to rain all weekend,” he notes.

“Can’t tell for sure yet,” I respond.  “Hurricane predictions are always tricky.  Might be nice both days.”

“Might be a monsoon,” he answers.

“Well, any outdoor festival takes a chance …”

“Unless it’s in the desert …”

“But things often turn out better than we expect.  I think we worry too much.  If they just canceled things every time someone thought there might be a problem, we’d sit around doing nothing at all.”

“And here I thought that’s what you do anyway!” he exclaims.

“I’m taking my walk.  Carnivals hardly excite me any more.  At this point in life, I have to be careful about how much junk food and treats I eat.  I remember when I could easily down a sausage and cheese sub on garlic bread without heartburn.”

“I suppose you avoid the rides as well,” he muses.

“Yeah,” I laugh.  “Not even grandchildren can get me on the graviton or anything else.  I get enough thrills on the LIE.”

“Or getting out of bed, some mornings.”

“But life goes on.  Look _ here comes the sun now.”  A few leaves have turned, so there are bright orange and yellow sparkles here and there near the tips of the crowns.

“Betcha a nickel it ends in gales and downpours.”

“No bets.  I need every nickel, and anyway I’ve learned at least a few things in life.  One of the main ones is to never count on weather predictions.  Or my own intuitions.”

The crews begin to unpack, and we watch operations with a growing crowd of the curious and bored.

Friday

• Nice warm sunny days are precious now.  People who a few weeks ago were slightly bored with summer have discovered that lately the few hours of free time they have available are often cold, wet, or dark.  It doesn’t take a woodsman to notice creeping signs of advancing season.  Leaves tumble in each light breeze, poison ivy blazes scarlet patches on trees, autumn fruits like crabapples are glossy and complete.
• The nicest thing about being comfortably retired is the sense that all time is my own.  I need not rush about like frantic younger generations.  I need not worry about what the future holds _ I know damn well what it holds.  That allows a sense of distance from the world providing perspectives I could never before achieve.  No longer a mystery that serene sages are always pictured as old and sitting still.  Often in autumn.

Saturday

• Most fortunate people in any era probably believe _ with reason _ that they have been lucky to live how and when they did.  Certainly I appreciate how spoiled I have been.  This is not to minimize the hardships and horrors faced by many others.  Nor would I claim that I am particularly normal _ anymore than anyone else I meet is normal.
• Baby boomers in America have passed through interesting times.  Predictions of Communist takeovers, global nuclear Armageddon, universal mass starvation, deadly ubiquitous pollution, rampaging plagues, and various other horrid fears have not quite come to pass.  On the other hand, glorious hallucinations of free love, peace, and prosperity have vanished into the same clouds as flying cars.
• Nevertheless, it has been a time to enjoy.  Technology has been breathtaking, globalization has made us aware of corners of the world as never before.  Civilization faces tremendous challenges in climate, extinctions, and social stability, but all of these are just beginning.  In the meantime, there has been food on the table, constant entertainment, and new wonders every week.
• Usually, I avoid political comments, which flare and die with each passing hour.  But I must note today that some people, in the same culture of which I speak, have used their lives to become ever more wretched and ugly.  It is easy to admire people who have overcome adversity to become shining examples of wisdom and strength.  It is normal to accept people who have used their natural gifts, talents, and fortune to survive and lead some measure of happy social lives.  It is possible to forgive people facing great adversity who have been broken by the weight of their burdens.  But it is impossible to admire or accept anyone _ like Donald Trump _ who has used supernatural fortune, immense inherited wealth, and superior leadership talents to sculpt his being into incarnate evil and profound destructive demagoguery.
• There are those who are spoiled by too much, or who do not understand how much has been offered and delivered.  They should be pitied their ignorance.  The worst spoilage emanates from those who _ like the proverbial bad apple _ manage to ruin an entire bountiful harvest with their deadly oozing blight.

Sunday

• Appearances deceive.  To an untrained or uncaring eye, nothing has changed.  Tree canopy remains lush and green.  Breezes are mild and gentle.  Vigorous weedy plants crowd each path and roadway.  Yet, in a month, all will seem to have been struck by death and ruin, brown and desolate.  Like those pictures of state-mandated patriotic rallies in places similar to North Korea, where vacuously happy elite multitudes cheer the shiny social surface, although deeper investigation reveals rot and terror bubbling treacherously underneath.
• We have evolved to expect tomorrow to closely resemble today.  A period of light, a later dimming, hours of dark while we sleep.  In spite of occasional hopes and fears, we deeply believe that if we have been healthy and well fed on Tuesday, our only care on Wednesday will be to choose what’s for dinner.  Those of us who realize how fragile this illusion of stability really is _ we are only one nuclear button away from global destruction, only one distracted driver removed from personal tragedy _ pause as often as we can to give thanks for what is.  Even that, I think, is not enough.

Oasis

Monday

• Day follows night, temperatures fall lower, each morning the world wakes once more in miraculous beauty.  Such was true even as plutocratic aristocrats ripped apart the Roman Republic, or black plague swept over Europe, or heads rolled in La Place Du Concorde, or thousands perished under fall of bombs, or millions died of starvation.  Grim global news seems to indicate the Earth is heading for the third and final collapse of civilization and the ultimate war which will wipe everything except single-celled organisms from this planet.  There will still be beauty, but none to notice.
• What can I or anyone do?  Hope and pray and enjoy the hours that remain?  I foster no illusions that I can make a difference among the mob or the fanatics.  Being an early martyr is hardly more useful to the cosmos than being a later victim.  And so I crouch here, in my lovely local oasis.  I cultivate my garden, cherish each moment, speak out once in a while, and fatalistically accept that the universe is a strange and wonderful place, but not benign, and not guaranteed to continue to allow any more oases such as mine.

Tuesday

On far seas huge waves rush and crush

Ocean tides flood top and drop

Hear breakers roar against the shore

Watch sparkling ripples land on sand

I can’t affect them, nor they me

Vast spaces off, suns burn and churn

Noon beams reflect from hands and lands

Colors glow while shadows grow

My soul basks under warm and charm

But just accepts what’s known must be.

Invisible, life hides and glides

Too small, too crowded, gels and cells,

Full universe alone, unknown

From conceit, I that more ignore

Involved in what I now can see.

Somewhere in branes of strings and things

Quantum singsong pops and stops

Empty magic, weird and feared

I wish to not know much of such

Too tenuous reality

My little spider spins and grins

What’s true must be met in my net

Beyond that nothing real to feel

Patiently I wait on fate

Sometimes happy, always free.

Wednesday

• All life responds to its environment, many animals are capable of learning, some even show signs of self-recognition and awareness.  But despite the claims of pet owners, animal consciousness is strongly limited to their immediate time and surroundings.  Dogs do not wonder what lies over the next hill or why stars glow, nor do they worry what will happen when they die.  Humans, on the other hand, have an unfortunate habit of overlooking the immediately obvious while dreaming of some distant possibility.
• Of course, we do strongly inhabit the here and now, sometimes more actively than we wish to.  Our wild imagination tempts us to become depressed over the possible fates of our planet one hundred years from now, or to care about the suffering of people thousands of miles away.  We worry about hopes and fears, sometimes to the point where it interferes with how we actually exist.  I am not yet immune enough to the worldwide web of desperate information about which I can reasonably do little or nothing.  I must take a deep breath, smile into the breeze and refocus on a beautiful white mushroom in the middle of my slightly overgrown lawn.

Thursday

Our discussion group at the library is in full furor over the television debates of the two presidential candidates.  I sit quietly, because there is really nothing new to say.  Only a few rehashed viewpoints.

Jane is proclaiming her standard argument.  “All politicians are liars and crooks.   It doesn’t matter who gets elected and it doesn’t matter at all what they say before they get elected because they won’t do what they say anyway.”  As in the British House of Commons, there arises a chorus of low croaking assent.

Marilyn, an activist, chirps, “But this is our chance to make a difference.  No matter what, we should be involved, demonstrating,  contributing to the candidate we like.”  We are all a tad too cynical for that so silence rules.

One of the few supporters of one party grumbles, “I agree with Jane, but at least my crook will shake things up and maybe the pieces will fall back into a better arrangement.”  Cynicism greets that statement as well.

Jeremy, spokesman for the majority, begins a long rant, “Our candidate is clearly better than that other jerk.  I don’t see how any reasonable person …”  Being reasonable persons, we are willing to hear him out, but no minds are being changed.

The sad fact is that like all cracker-barrel philosophers, we spend our few hours chewing the cud in front of the Franklin stove at the village store, getting as heated with what is being said as we are by the fire inside.  Then we’ll head back to our rustic homesteads and fix the windows or pull the weeds and do what we can to make our small slice of the universe a better place to be.

Friday

• Frightening statistics being thrown about how this area is 10 inches below normal rainfall.  Sometimes the effects show, but there have been enough showers and mild downpours to keep the surface green, even if the subsoil is arid.  Anyway, this is unlikely a climate change issue, just the luck of the weather which for months has somehow split all storms as they reached New York City into two paths:  up the Hudson and out to sea, leaving the Island parched in the middle.  None of that means we have totally avoided cloudy days.  Probably the pattern will change just in time to concentrate blizzards over the winter ….
• It is always chancy to predict the future from what has happened, or to generalize about the whole world based on what you have experienced.  Just because I’m living comfortably does not mean everyone else _ or anyone else for that matter _ is doing so.  Just because I have not even noticed the drought around me does not make it nonexistent.  For that reason I am hesitant about making broad statements most of the time _ although I can spin whoppers with the best of them if I’m in the mood.   And yet, I remain certain that my limited local understanding of our world should count for something.

Saturday

• Huge spruce tree, ragweed poking through asphalt along the harbor, starfish living and dead washed on shore, are all playing their parts in whatever universal grand scheme may exist.  Their nearly unnoticed contributions are vital to continuing the spectacle.  What is one more tree, ragweed, starfish?  God may watch the fall of sparrows, but we find it difficult to pay much attention until they go on the endangered species list, when it is often too late.
• Ancient religions correctly placed us between heaven and earth _ more than plants or animals, less than omniscient spirits.  Today we still find ourselves at war with ourselves.  We know we should make the world better _ or at least stable _ but that is hard to accept if it means we must shiver through the winter, or eat food we do not like.  Nothing in science has helped us cope with our dual and multiple natures.
• How can we judge a life?  How do we evaluate that ragweed, that starfish upside down on sand?  How do we mark our own purpose, if any?  Unanswerable questions except in so far as the questions may be meaningless.  Perhaps such questions are incapable of being framed correctly.
• Life is complex and contradictory.  People can and do sacrifice their own happiness and families to save or ameliorate the lives of many others.  Does some invisible Karma make it all finally equal out? 
• And, of course, another equally challenging thought is should we always be the same?  Can we help people at one point in our lives, and help ourselves at another, and be relatively good for doing so?  Or does the universe, like our corporations, only care about what we have done for it lately?
• Once in a while I spend too much time contemplating such thoughts.  Even then, I often wonder if such thinking is noble or useless.  And inevitably I return to my comfortable chair, my delicious snacks, and my comfortable existence.

Sunday

• Ancient 12^th century Chinese ink scrolls have immortalized concepts of the contemplative scholar, bureaucratic chores completed, wandering through a tamed wilderness, sitting in a quiet pavilion staring at the moon, drinking a cup of plum wine as he traces each line of a delicate peach blossom.    Perhaps he also composes a poem, or himself produces a finely toned brush masterwork.  He is refined, and content, and obviously not impoverished, but neither is he burdened with trinkets nor concerned at the moment with the daily frenzy of the imperial court which it is assumed he must by necessity daily inhabit to continue his existence.  A certain type of idyllic mental oasis.
• I have always revered this vision, or at any rate my interpretation of it.  I too seek to wander tamed paths finding such nature as I will, to occasionally stare at the moon and listen to crickets in the darkness, and to watch birds through my picture window as I sip a cup of coffee.  I prefer to believe my oasis differs only in particulars from the message of the ink scroll.  There is a degree of charm in remaining unconnected to the electronic web, to bustling consumer acquisitiveness, to concern for striving for more and better.  Seeking to find perfection in this exact moment is sometimes the most profound accomplishment I can achieve. 
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